OREANDA-NEWS. March 02, 2011. Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. announced today that it would be strengthening its initiatives for the tire labeling system scheduled to commence in Europe in 2012. The system aims to better regulate the environmental performance and safety of tire products. Yokohama Rubber strongly supports the intentions behind the system and will proactively develop higher grades of tire products as it encourages the spread of environmentally friendly, safe tires. In April of this year, prior to the new system entering into effect, the company will launch the BluEarth series in Europe. Its first product, BluEarth-1, has achieved the system’s highest possible grade of A * for fuel economy.

The EU tire labeling system is a grading system initiated by the EU European Commission. It represents an application to tire products of similar systems for consumer electronics introduced by EU countries to reduce environmental load. Products are graded according to their rolling resistance performance (fuel economy), wet grip performance (safety) and external noise performance (environmental performance), and display their grades in labeling. The intent is to communicate environmental performance and safety to users in an easily understood manner and to encourage the spread of low fuel-consumption tires by obligating the labeling of tire products and the provision of information at the time of purchase.

Yokohama Rubber was one of the first companies in the Japanese industry to establish the concept of "improving fuel economy by reducing rolling resistance." In 1998 it launched the first eco tires in Japan. In June 2010 it announced in Japan a new BluEarth global brand based on the concept of "an environmentally, human and socially friendly tire." There are already three products in the lineup. As the first step in the global development of the brand, it will begin sales of BluEarth-1 in Europe this April. The company will continue to use the wealth of expertise that it has accumulated over its long history in this industry to develop products that achieve high levels of both driving and environmental performance, thereby encouraging the spread of environmentally-friendly tires.

Initiatives are gearing up around the world to spread low fuel-consumption tires as a means of preventing global warming. Japan launched a voluntary tire performance grading system in 2010, and the United States, Korea and other countries are moving forward on the creation of similar systems.

*This label format and information shown are not official. They are for informational use only and should not be considered as an early implementation of EC Regulation 1222/2009. The official grading will only be available once the measures needed for the implementation of EC Regulation 1222/2009 have been adopted. This estimated grading has been done by YOKOHAMA internally.